Fifth Covid wave hits Australia as cases spike in every state and territory
Experts predict a fifth Covid wave across Australia as cases rise with the onset of colder weather
- The fifth Covid wave hits Australia
- Experts say the number of infections will double
- An average of 5,461 new cases per day
A prominent epidemiologist says it is ‘obvious’ Australia is moving towards the fifth wave of Covid.
In the past week, 38,226 cases were reported across Australia, with an average of 5,461 cases per day.
While cases are rising in nearly every state and territory — including a peak of 44 percent in Tasmania — the seven-day rolling average of 5,461 is well below the national peak of more than 100,000 cases in January 2022.
Professor Adrian Esterman from the University of South Australia said it is already very clear that a new wave is arriving in South Australia, where the number of infections is predicted to double over the next two weeks.
“It’s pretty clear now that we’re entering a fifth Omicron wave across the country,” he told the ABC.
“We’ve seen the numbers rise for three weeks in a row now.”
In the past week, 38,226 cases of Covid were reported across Australia, with an average of 5,461 cases per day
It comes as health authorities are also reporting an increase in cases of the flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
“It’s a triple whammy right now,” he said.
Diagnosis rates of influenza are 100 times higher than last yearwith more than 40,000 cases of lab-proven flu so far by 2023.
Of those, more than 8,173 cases were diagnosed in the first half of May alone, according to the Australian government’s National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System.
NSW reported the most cases of Covid-19 in the past seven days with 2,095 people diagnosed – an 18 percent increase from the previous week.
However, there have been no mandatory testing and isolation rules for people with symptoms for some time, so the recorded cases are unlikely to reflect the number of people in the community who have the disease.
University of South Australia Professor Adrian Esterman said it is clear a fifth Covid wave is arriving in South Australia (pictured are weekly Covid cases from September to May)
About 218,000 doses of Covid vaccine have been administered in the past 7 days, on top of the more than 2.5 million adults who have received a booster dose since January.
The impending fifth wave will arrive in an entirely different landscape than before, after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared earlier this month that Covid-19 no longer represents a ‘global health emergency’.
According to WHO data, the global death rate from viruses fell to just over 3,500 per week in April, after peaking at more than 100,000 people per week in January 2021.
It is estimated that the virus was the cause of nearly 7 million deaths worldwide.